The Minutes Don't Stop
by Writerforthem
Summary: Sam is losing sense of reality when his scar starts to fade.  Dean is the only thing keeping him from going totally crazy.  He's stone number one.  warning: very sad.  just sayin.


**I wrote this one night when I couldn't sleep. It could be a possibility for a contest on deviantart for the Moose-Kateers group. Not sure if i'm going to enter or not. What do you think? **

**A little warning for sadness. I don't know why I pick on poor Sam so much. But well... that's just how it went.**

**The Minutes Don't Stop**

It's when the scar starts fading. That's when everything starts. Or ends. It's hard to tell now. His hold on reality, slipping. His hold on imagination, slipping. Mixing together into a concoction that steadily drives him crazier every day. Something there that wasn't before. Reaching for something only to have it disappear before his eyes. Little things at first that tell him he's going crazy.

It's the reaching for things that aren't there that gets him the most. Because they're things that used to be there. Or would be if he had actually gotten them out of his bag that day. But he didn't. And that's what scares him. Forgetting what's happened and hasn't happened. What's real and what's not. It scares him worse than the first time Lucifer showed up. Because these are _his_ things. Not chains or hooks. _His_ stuff. It's like having his privacy invaded. And that unsettles him. It makes it harder to tell what's actually there.

What's worse is trying to hide it from Dean. Second guessing himself before he picks something up or commenting on something his brother might not see. He doesn't want Dean to know it's happening again. Doesn't want him to look at him with distrust again. A look from his brother that cuts him to the bone every time. Every day it gets harder. Eventually he stops bringing things up to talk about. He's afraid his confusion will show.

When Lucifer shows up again, that's when it all starts falling apart.

He sits in the corner of every room. Never leaving him alone. Commenting on everything. Staking his claim on Sam by owning what happens in his life. The fading scar doesn't make him go away. Nothing does. He just sits there. Watching. It's unsettling how he seems to know Sam can't get rid of him. But of course he knows that. He's in Sam's head.

"But am I_ in_ your head, or just manipulating it?"

Sam ignores him, keeping his eyes on the darkening landscape that passes by outside. He sees the scars from hell on his face in the slight reflection. They run like train tracks on his arms, his face, his body going under his shirt. They're all over, he'd bet. He knows they aren't real.

Lucifer sits in the back seat of the impala as Dean drives them down the road. There's blood running down the side of Dean's head. Lots of it. He knows that isn't real either. Or is it? Had they just come from a hunt?

He has to close his eyes and take a deep breath before he can come back to reality. No. The blood isn't real. They're on their way to a hunt. Not from one. Dean's okay.

"Are you sure?" Lucifer asks.

His hands clench in his lap. No second guessing right now. Not when he's right next to Dean in the car. Where he can't escape questions. He watches a hellhound step out of the woods and start running next to the car. He grits his teeth to keep from making a sound.

"That was my favorite torture," Lucifer comments almost lazily from the back seat. "Making you think I sent them after Dean. Again. And you couldn't do anything about it. Every. Single. Time."

_Shut up!_

"Say that out loud, Sam. Let your brother know what's going on. He's not real anyway. What's it going to do?"

Sam tries to will the dog to go away. It doesn't work. If anything, it looks at him, eyes glowing a color of red that doesn't exist outside of hell. "It's not going away Sam."

It doesn't. Not until they get to the next town after Dean takes an exit. Even then, he catches glimpses of it wherever he looks.

"Ready to stop for the night?"

Sam crushes down the urge to panic, a mantra of '_it's not real, it's not real_' going through his head. "Yeah."

Dean looks over. "You alright?"

"What? Yeah. Why wouldn't I be?"

Dean eyes him with a sidelong look for a few seconds, then shrugs. "Just checking. You seem tense. And you 've been weirdly quiet lately."

Sam shrugs, ignoring Lucifer's smug grin in the back seat. "I'm fine. Just tired."

Dean pulls into a motel parking lot, getting out to get a room.

Sam is grateful. He looks around nonchalantly for the hellhound.

"You're not fooling me, Sam. Or yourself."

"Shut up," he hisses back, aloud this time. He gets out of the car when Dean comes back, going to the trunk to get their things. A searing pain shoots up his leg, the hellhound materializing out of nowhere, causing him to fall to the ground with a pained cry.

_The first time was just like it had been topside. Trapped to the wall, screaming for the hellhound to stop ripping his brother apart._

_The second, the kill was slower. He screamed until he lost his voice._

_The third, Dean cried out for his help. It took hours for him to die. Sam was stuck to the wall again. His voice died before Dean did._

_The fourth, he silently cried._

_The fifth, he broke free of the wall. He gripped and pulled the hellhounds away with his bare hands. They turned on him too. He died before Dean, knowing his brother suffered longer. _

_The sixth, he breaks free again. He still dies first. Dean's calling for him as he bleeds out and everything goes black. _

_It's like when it's happening, he can't remember that it's not real. And when it's over, a sense of relief washes over him when he realizes Dean's safe. It leaves with the next round of torture. He forgets before the next time, years in between each session. _

"Sam? C'mon buddy, open your eyes. I see your eyes moving behind there. Open them. Wake up for me. Sam?"

His eyes open slowly, a breath entering his lungs silently and slowly. Like he's just taking a normal breath rather than gasping like it would usually be. His eyes meet Dean's, his brother leaning over him with his face etched in worry.

"You with me?"

Sam nods. His throat feels raw. He doesn't talk.

Dean helps him up, and into the motel room. His leg doesn't hurt anymore. Dean asks what happened. "Sounded like something sank its teeth into you."

Sam flinches. "Hellhound to be exact."

Dean grimaces, sitting next to him on the bed. "Sorry."

"It's alright. It's not real." He lifts the leg of his jeans to look. It's clean.

"It is real. It's this reality that's not. I can make pain without damage." Lucifer sits.

Sam frowns, letting his jeans drop. "It's not real," he repeats again.

"You're seeing him again." Dean sounds defeated.

No use denying it, Sam nods. "And other things."

"Hellhounds?"

"Random things."

Dean frowns. "Like what?"

Sam looks around the room. "There's a demon in the corner. Just watching. Lucifer is at the table. There's one of the little pesky demons on your shoulder. Sank its teeth into you. You're bleeding."

Dean flinches, grimacing as he looks to his shoulder by reflex. "Little ones?"

"Not human. A creature. Not really describable topside. I think I had a name for them in the pit." His forehead wrinkles as he thinks. "Can't remember. But they're all different creatures. Demonic little things." He looks at the one on Dean's shoulder distastefully, as if it were a bug.

Dean doesn't like how calm his brother is like this. "Sam? Look at me." He makes eye contact when Sam turns to him. "I need you to help me out here. Tell me what I can do to make it go away."

Sam's face saddens. "You can't," he answers quietly. "I've tried." He holds up his hand. "It doesn't work."

Dean takes his hand, glaring at the faded scar. Then looks up again. "You need to believe me, Sam. You need to believe me that this life is real. To the point that you breathe not just because you have to, but because you know it's real enough to keep you alive. You don't need to breathe in the pit. I know. But you have to breathe here."

"His realities felt real," Sam murmurs, looking at the demon in the corner of the room. He glares when it grins at him, eyes slightly red to stand out against its black, smoky body. He looks down at his leg then. "That bite felt real. It's like either nothing is real, or everything's real. I can't tell the difference anymore." He looks at his brother. "I can't tell the difference."

Dean's face is stricken, but he thinks logically about this. "Then let's say everything's real. I'm real. This life is real. And maybe the creature on my shoulder is real. You're… schizophrenic. Sorry."

Sam shrugs.

"They see things that are real to them. Maybe feels them, I don't know. But they survive. You can do this, Sam. Live. Survive with me. Acknowledge that this might not go away, but don't let it control you. Alright? Tell me what you see every day. I'll tell you what's real. You have to believe in me. Remember?"

Sam nods. "Stone number one."

Dean's face suddenly softens, before a slight grin. "Stone number one. Ask me what's real. Don't hide from me. Alright? It's the only way we'll get through this."

"You're my mediator."

Dean nods. "I'm your mediator."

Sam puts his hand to Dean's chest, causing his brother to freeze in confusion. His eyes close, opening after he takes a deep breath. He takes pity on Dean's confusion. "Your heartbeat. I couldn't find it sometimes in the pit." His hand goes to move away.

Dean puts his hand over Sam's, keeping it there a second longer. He nods, being sure to make eye contact. "I'm right here. I'm real. Stone number one has to be real to put stone number two on top of it, right?"

Sam nods. "I'm stone two."

Dean nods, letting Sam's hand slip away. "You're stone two. And everything else after that." He stands, suddenly uncomfortable with how 'chick-flicky' things have gotten. "You hungry? I could go get something."

Sam shakes his head. "Just tired."

Dean nods. "Me too."

They get ready for bed silently. When they both lay down, Sam lays on his side, facing Dean, making sure he'll see him if he has to. In turn, Dean keeps the covers low enough that they don't go over his shoulders, and lays on his back or side, facing Sam. A few little adjustments to their life will have to be made.

* * *

><p>"Dean?"<p>

"Hmm?"

"Is there a knife in your chest?"

Dean grimaces at how simply Sam asks that. It's been a little over a month since he found out the hallucinations were back. "No, Sammy."

"Okay." He lets it out in a breath, as if Dean could have been answering him and not be dead already with a knife in his chest.

"Biter is on your shoulder."

This hits a sore spot for Dean too. Sam's named the little demon creature he sees on Dean all the time, which is quite a horror in itself for it to be so blatantly accepted. It bites him anywhere it pleases, as described by the name. One day Sam even said it had chewed him up to the point of bone and organs showing through. He couldn't look at Dean that day without panic clawing up his throat or feeling like he was going to throw up.

"No he's not," Dean answers almost angrily.

Sam sighs. "No, he's not. But he's also biting into your neck."

Dean ignores him.

"I don't remember college anymore," he murmurs.

Dean glares at the road. The total is four years now. Sam's forgotten four years of his life. At first it was only his first year at school. "You went to Stanford."

"Did I like it?"

"I've never figured that out, actually," he answers with almost amusement. He never figured out if Sam actually liked what he always wanted.

Sam frowns. "I must not have. I forgot it."

Dean wants to grin. But he's worried.

* * *

><p>Sam remembers more hell than his life now. It's actually been cut down a few things. Dean, himself, the impala with most of what's in it and a lot of those memories of drives from past to present, and hunting. Those are the important things anyway. Besides common daily things. The worst, he thinks, is Sam having forgotten their parents. They don't bring it up.<p>

Sam usually ignores the things around him now, though sometimes he forgets they aren't real or talks to Lucifer. He looks to Dean for answers. Dean can usually keep him sane. He's his mediator. The one of the two that isn't crazy. Dean knows what's real. He answers Sam's questions. He makes Sam believe. He's stone number one in Sam's wall of truths. Few are left.

* * *

><p>Lucifer seems to be gone. Most of Sam's memories are too. Only the seemingly important parts of his life stick around. All centered around Dean. His last stone left. Hell only comes at night in his dreams. During the day, Dean is his memories. He asks for them now. Tells Dean to remind him of things they did as kids. Of hunts they went on. He doesn't want to forget the ones he remembers. Or he wants to remember them again.<p>

Dean knows Lucifer is gone because Sam stops talking to him. He stops seeing things. Stops having flashbacks during the day. Dean hopes this is it. That Sam lost most of his mind through his wall breaking down slowly, but he gets to be almost innocent again for the last years of his life. However long they live.

They've mostly stopped hunting. Dean gets a few close to where they've settled. Takes Sam but makes sure it's something he remembers. Like a salt and burn or something easy like that. He has a small job to pay for their motel room they live in. No need for a house when they're fine in a motel. Cheaper too. And it's not a dump. They're comfortable.

* * *

><p>Three years. Memories disappear slower than they used to, but they do disappear. Dean stops hunting for good after one year. He keeps his hours at work short to stay home with Sam most of the time after two years. He does most of the talking. Sam listens. They go for walks. Drives. Sit on the hood like they've always done. He tells Sam the constellations every time because he forgot again.<p>

Sam seems healthy outside his mind. But with it deteriorating, Dean knows it won't be long. He's not ready. Never will be. He still isn't when Sam doesn't get up one morning. Lays in bed, looking at him blankly. A few breaths later, his brain shuts down, one last word leaving with his last breath.

Sam's last memory is Dean's name.


End file.
